> The claim I responded to is that suddenly Apple Silicon-based Macs are more locked down than the Intel-based ones, and that "you only get to do what Apple lets you do." It is false.
It is true for the reason I stated. You can run other, less locked-down operating systems on Intel systems, as well as older, less-locked down versions of macOS. On Apple Silicon-based Macs you in practice have to use the latest, more locked-down version of macOS.
> On Apple Silicon-based Macs you in practice have to use the latest, more locked-down version of macOS.
Because Apple Silicon computers were not available on the market until 3 months ago. Of course you have to use the "latest, more locked-down version of macOS" considering they have never released any other version of macOS for this platform! It is absurd to expect that they would backport support for an _entirely new architecture_, a monumental engineering effort, to previous versions of macOS.
If you are going to claim that Big Sur is more locked down than the previous release, I'd also like to see citations about that. The most significant change is that the OS-provided files are now on a read-only partition. You can still break the seal and modify it if you want.
Whether or not they prevent you from downgrading to Big Sur from the next release remains to be seen. They do so on iOS, but this has never been the case on macOS, which has the `softwareupdate` command line tool that can download OS installers for past releases, plus Time Machine for rolling back to earlier snapshots.
> It is absurd to expect that they would backport support for an _entirely new architecture_, a monumental engineering effort, to previous versions of macOS.
What they could easily do, however, is to release a new version of macOS which is not more locked down than historical versions.
> If you are going to claim that Big Sur is more locked down than the previous release, I'd also like to see citations about that.
Snow Leopard didn't have Gatekeeper. Things are clearly going in a particular direction.
Also, inconveniences are "more locked down" or else you could argue that nothing is ever locked down because all you have to do is find a security vulnerability and jailbreak the device.
It is true for the reason I stated. You can run other, less locked-down operating systems on Intel systems, as well as older, less-locked down versions of macOS. On Apple Silicon-based Macs you in practice have to use the latest, more locked-down version of macOS.